what3words

what3words
Founded March 2013
Founders Jack Waley-Cohen, Chris Sheldrick
Headquarters Westbourne Studios, London
Website what3words.com

What3words (stylized what3words) is a geocoding system for the simple communication of locations with a resolution of 3 m. What3words encodes geographic coordinates into 3 dictionary words (for example, the Statue of Liberty is located at planet.inches.most). This differs from other location encoding systems in that it displays three words rather than long strings of numbers or letters. What3words has a website, apps for iOS and Android, as well as an API that enables bidirectional conversion of what3words address and latitude/longitude coordinates.

Investment

Founded by Jack Waley-Cohen and Chris Sheldrick,[1] what3words launched in March 2013, and received USD 500,000 of seed funding in November 2013,[2] and added a further USD 1,000,000 in March 2014.[3][4][5] On November 3, 2015, what3words closed a $3.5 million Series A funding round led by Intel Capital, with Li Ka-shing's Horizons Ventures and several of what3words original angel investors also participating. It brought the total raised by the U.K. startup to $5 million, after it topped up its initial $500,000 seed with a further $1 million in 2014.[6] On June 29, 2016, what3words closed a $8.5 million series B round led by Aramex [7]

Design principles

What3words uses a grid of the world made up of 57 trillion squares of 3 metres by 3 metres. Each square has been given a 3-word address. What3words has named the 17 trillion squares on land with 3 words in 10 other languages in addition to English: French, Russian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish, Swahili, Mongolian.[8]

Each what3words language uses a wordlist of 25,000 words (40,000 in English, as it covers the sea as well as land). The wordlists go through multiple automated and human processes before being sorted by an algorithm that takes into account word length, distinctiveness, frequency, and ease of spelling and pronunciation. Homophones and variant spellings are treated to minimise any potential for confusion, and offensive words are removed.[8]

The what3words algorithm actively shuffles similar-sounding three-word combinations around the world to enable both human and automated error-checking. The result is that if a three-word combination is entered slightly incorrectly and the result is still a valid w3w reference, the location will be so far away from the user's intended area that it will be immediately obvious to both a user and an intelligent error-checking system.[8]

The what3words system works via a proprietary algorithm as opposed to a database, meaning that the what3words core technology is contained with a file around 10MB in size. What3words originally sold "OneWord" addresses, which were stored in a database for a yearly fee,[9] but the feature has been canceled.[10]

The main claimed advantage of what3words is memorability and unambiguous nature of words for most everyday and non-technical uses.[11][12]

Users

Aid & Humanitarian

Navigation & Transit

Asset Management

Delivery

Festivals & Events

Travel

Awards

References

  1. ↑ "Team". what3words.
  2. ↑ "Startup what3words gets USD 500,000 in seed round". Venture Capital Post.
  3. ↑ "Location Pinpointing Startup what3words Adds $1M More To Its Seed To Flog More Map Labels". TechCrunch. AOL.
  4. ↑ "what3words closes $1m to expand 'alternative to postcodes' mapping service". Startups.co.uk: Starting a business advice and business ideas.
  5. ↑ "What3words adds $1M more to seed round". Venture Capital Post.
  6. ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/03/what3words-series-a/
  7. ↑ https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/29/addressing-platform-what3words-closes-8-5m-series-b-led-by-logistics-firm-aramex/
  8. 1 2 3 "About". what3words.
  9. ↑ Lomas, Natasha (8 Jul 2013). "Location-Pinpointing Startup what3words Sells 10,000+ OneWord Map-Pins In First Week". TechCrunch.
  10. ↑ "what3words on Twitter: "we did charge for that functionality but no longer offer it and access to the system is free."". 1 May 2015.
  11. ↑ "The best navigation idea I've seen since the Tube map". The Spectator. 25 October 2014.
  12. ↑ Crannell, C. W.; Parrish, J. M. (1957). "A comparison of immediate memory span for digits, letters, and words". The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied. 44: 319–327.
  13. ↑ "UN disaster app includes three word addresses". EE Publishers.
  14. ↑ http://what3words.com/2016/02/tropical-health/
  15. ↑ Miles, Stuart. "Navmii navigation app turns driving into a game, uses What3Words to make sure you never get lost again". pocket-lint.com.
  16. ↑ http://what3words.com/2016/03/pocketearth/
  17. ↑ http://what3words.com/2016/04/tripgo/
  18. ↑ http://www.thememo.com/2016/08/09/what3words-is-addressing-rios-mapping-nightmare/
  19. ↑ "Partner: Pollinate Energy Indian Slum Solar Lighting & what3words". what3words.
  20. ↑ "Partner: In2Care Mosquito Traps & what3words". what3words.
  21. ↑ http://what3words.com/2016/02/metcom/
  22. ↑ http://what3words.com/2016/06/videre/
  23. ↑ https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/29/addressing-platform-what3words-closes-8-5m-series-b-led-by-logistics-firm-aramex/
  24. ↑ "To Address Poverty, We Need Addresses". The Huffington Post UK.
  25. ↑ "Mongol Post adopts what3words as national addressing system". Mongol Post. 23 May 2016. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  26. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2016/jun/21/injured-glastonbury-app-what-3-words
  27. ↑ http://what3words.com/2016/08/towersey-festival/
  28. ↑ https://www.geospatialworld.net/news-posts/earth-i-what3words-keep-an-eye-on-farnborough-international-airshow-from-above/
  29. ↑ http://what3words.com/2015/09/hedonists-guide/
  30. ↑ http://what3words.com/2016/07/partner-irish-tourism-guides-adopt-what3words/
  31. ↑ Diaz, Ann-Christine (26 June 2015). "What3Words Innovation Grand Prix Cannes - Special: Cannes Lions - Advertising Age". adage.com.
  32. ↑ http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29110330/tech-awards-honor-an-array-laureates
  33. ↑ http://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2016/creativity-for-good-white-pencil/25060/the-world-addressed/
  34. ↑ https://www.flickr.com/photos/45442848@N05/27543176306/in/album-72157666923588814/
  35. ↑ https://home.kpmg.com/uk/en/home/media/press-releases/2016/02/what3words-crowned-best-british-mobile-startup-2016-at-mwc.html
  36. ↑ http://www.pwc.co.uk/who-we-are/great-innovation-competition-2016.html
  37. ↑ https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/accenture-consumer-innovation-award-winners-announced.htm
  38. ↑ http://www.tech4goodawards.com/finalist/what3words/

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/7/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.